


If walls had ears

by in_a_pickle



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Humour, Love at First Sight, M/M, Up on the wall, Uriel is a Cherub, just hanging out together, light hearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_a_pickle/pseuds/in_a_pickle
Summary: “Can I tell you something, Crawly.” When there was no answer he lifted bare toed foot and prodded him on the shoulder rousing him from his slumber. “It wasn’t really all my fault.”“What wasn’t?” The demon mumbled half awake.“The whole apple tree business.”The conversation continues between the angel and the demon as they hang out for a while longer up on the wall of Eden.
Relationships: Crawly, Crowley - Relationship, aziraphale - Relationship
Kudos: 13





	If walls had ears

The first storm had passed overhead, the slate grey curtain of cloud continued its rumbling quest towards the western slopes of the desert. The demon known as Crawly slipped out from under the shelter of the angel’s wing and held out a flat palm to catch the last few raindrops that fell from the sky. He touched them curiously with his long fingers.

“Aziraphale.” The angel said. He shook his wings to dry them, the pearlescent beads caught the sun and sparkled as they showered to the ground.

“Is that what they’re called?” The demon caught a droplet on his bony finger and rubbed it with his thumb. “Aziraphale.” He looked up at the angel and pulled a face.“That’s a bit of a mouthful.”

“Erm, no,” said the angel, “ _I’m_ Aziraphale,” he blushed, “I didn’t introduce myself earlier.”

“Oh.” The demon laughed, and returned to his examination, “sorry, I thought you meant these,” he put his finger to his mouth flicking out a forked tongue to touch them, they tasted like the minerally scent of the angel.

A gust of warm air blew up over the wall from the desert far below and swirled the grains of sand around their feet, the dangling threads on the angel’s loose hemmed robe danced in the breeze. A minute of quiet passed between the beings, it wasn’t an awkward one as those sorts of silences had yet to be invented, but the obvious moment for the demon to leave had already left and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to do so either.

And so the angel Aziraphale continued to stand on guard, watching, waiting, maintaining his vigil as he had been instructed to do . . . he definitely, certainly, absolutely was not trying to get in a sly look at the demon. The angel had been a little thrown off track earlier by Crawly’s easy manner and pleasant countenance, he had been expecting more boils and sores if he was honest, it was quite unnerving.

Under the pretence of dutifully surveying the landscape, Aziraphale chanced a glance over at the evil presence lurking beside him, absorbed in licking raindrops from his fingertips with a very long and dexterous tongue. The angel could see that Crawly cut a handsome figure, standing centre stage amidst the pale arid scenery. His immaculate wings emulated the colour of his black robes and his long red hair, windswept in the desert breeze, framed his handsome angular face. He was like nothing Aziraphale had ever seen before. The evil presence looked around at him and smiled broadly startling the angel out of his surreptitious ogling.

Aziraphale politely cleared his throat,“So . . .You’re a demon then.” Aziraphale was a powerful heavenly being but also the forefather of stating the complete obvious.

“Evidently.” The demon said, rolling his serpentine eyes, which was a feat in itself. “You’re really bad at this aren’t you.” His voice rumbled in amusement, enjoying the way the angel stood there feigning composure but looking more like a jittery bag of frogs, he found it quite endearing.

“Am I?” The angel fretted and looked away flustered. “Oh dear.”. He looked back at the smirking demon. “Bad at what? Exactly.”

Crawly smiled and shook his head. “This . . small talk, chit chat.”

“Oh, well It’s. . . It’s. . . . well, you’re not really what I expected.” He stammered. “No offence, of course.”

“None taken.” Intrigue ignited the demons amber eyes, “what _did_ you expect?”

“I don’t know, you just don’t look like how I . . .” he shrugged helplessly, “ . . imagined a demon would look.” He decided it might be a bit rude to mention the lack of boils and sores at this point and he wasn’t about to admit that he found the demon quite easy on the eye.

In all honesty looking at Crawly made his toes tingle in a very pleasant way, inspiring some very unangely feelings inside him.

“Oh. Well, if it makes you feel better then the feeling is mutual.” The demon said, attempting to put the angel at his ease. He tucked his ebony wings away to another dimension. “Most of the angels I remember were a little less . . . what shall we say . . . frayed around the edges.”

Crawly smirked and stepped up on to the stone parapet, and lowered himself down to sitting, a little awkwardly at first as if his limbs still wanted to move as one. He let his long bare legs hang over the wall and turned his face up to the sky, the sun relaxed his features as the warm rays bathed his mottled skin.

The angel looked down at him and wondered if he should be feeling a bit miffed. He didn’t think he should be standing for it. No angel worth his salt would let a demon sit on his wall like he owned the place making cheeky remarks about his appearance. He _knew_ the angelic protocol on in such situations, vanquishing evil and all that, but felt rather reluctant to implement it. Crawly looked so peaceful sitting there, not expecting to be walloped by an angel at all.

The demon basked fearlessly in the sunlight, he let out a contented hum as the heat warmed through to his new bones, his inner serpent stretched out lazily.

Goodness, Aziraphale suddenly thought, if any of the Archangels caught him up here guarding a sunbathing demon he’d certainly be for the high jump. In light of the whole disastrous apple tree business, it would probably be more of a pole vault.

“Look, Shouldn’t I be erm . . . smiting you or something?” The angel said in a slightly concerned tone.

“Probably.” Crawly cracked open one eye and looked up, amused, his bottom lip characteristically protruding slightly. “Do you want to?”

“No. Not really, that’s the point.” Aziraphale anxiously wrung his hands and paced about the wall a bit, trying to ignore how captivating the point looked sitting there, all sun kissed and interesting and not aware of his inner turmoil.

“Well, that’s a relief.” The demon said, and returned to enjoy the sunshine.

“It’s just that I think it’s expected of me,” said the angel, his words coming out a little frantically,“ I don’t want to do the wrong thing, I’m in enough trouble upstairs as it is.”

The demon’s eyes remained closed,“I thought we’d agreed earlier that you can’t do the wrong thing,” he drawled lazily, “being an angel and everything.”

“Yes, well, I might be starting to doubt that a bit now.”

It wasn’t so much that Aziraphale did the _wrong_ thing, it was more of the case that he couldn’t seem do anything _right_ , he thought to himself mournfully. He couldn’t even bring himself to smite a demon.

No. Smite _this_ demon who had _no right_ to be looking up at him now with a rather lovely smile. The tingling had upped sticks from his feet and moved to his tummy for a better view.

“Oh fiddlesticks’ he said to himself. He needed to get his head out of the clouds and be on his guard, this slippery serpent had got past him once already today and who knows what vile temptation he was planning next.

“So you can change into a snake too then?” He observed at last in an ‘I’ve got your number’ kind of tone, “a shape-shifter.”

Crawly gave a soft laugh highlighting the creases that crinkled attractively around his eyes. “Yes, I can.” He nodded. “And are you . . . anything else?” he enquired, a teasing note of mischief in his voice.

“Erm, no I’m not,” Aziraphale gave an small embarrassed laugh, then a resigned sigh. “ . . I’m just me,”

“Isn’t that enough?” asked Crawly,” to just be who you are?” He looked up at the angel with hint of affection.

“Sometimes,” said the angel despondently, “I don’t think it is,” and with a mumble that sounded something like ‘oh sod it’ he withdrew his wings from the mortal plain and joined the demon on the parapet sitting at a respectful distance from any hellish overspill. The wind blew through his blonde curls, ruffling them gently and with his hands clasped softly in his lap he looked a portrait of angelic perfection. Crawly watched him closely, mapping the angel’s every move with his yellow unblinking eyes as if he was trying to imprint this image in his mind, savouring this heavenly picture. 

“So what are you doing up here anyway?” The demon asked, he was sure he’d seen him down in the garden earlier this morning. Crawly distinctly remembered seeing a sword stuck point down in an ant hill and this angel doing some serious internal research on a bunch of small purple fruit.

“Erm, well . . . at the moment I’m supposed to be guarding one of the Gates.”

“Gates? What gate?” Crawly’s eyesight was poor but he hadn’t seen anything resembling a gate for miles.

“This Gate, the Eastern one.” The angel said as if it was totally obvious.

“This is a wall.” The demon pointed out.

“And a gate, apparently.” Aziraphale informed him importantly, “and I’m guarding it.”

“What with?”

“A flaming. . ,” he looked around absentmindedly “. . . oh bother.”

“You gave it away, remember.” Crawly smirked.

“Yes I did, didn’t I.” He sunk his head into his hands shaking it in resignation, “oh dear, maybe I really haven’t thought this whole thing through.”

He looked so utterly befuddled that Crawly couldn’t help laughing, wide and loud, showing a set of crooked but perfectly white teeth. Aziraphale looked up and couldn’t help but smile back at him, he found the comic absurdity of the moment appealed to his earthly sense of humour. The demon’s mirth was quite infectious and they sat there laughing together on the wall in harmony. Aziraphale felt the tingle in his tummy turn in to a flutter inside his chest, it went a little towards relieving some of the wretchedness that had been undigested since the fall of man earlier that morning.

The demon stopped laughing and looked at him as if he had suddenly become worth noticing. “Sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

“Aziraphale.” said the angel.

“Crawly.” He held out a hand feeling it was something you might do when offering your name to a relative stranger.

“Yes, you said.” Aziraphale politely reminded him, declining the proffered hand. Whilst the demon appeared to be all politeness and courtesy, he was still a denizen from hell and Aziraphale had been warned about their wily wiles, give them half the chance.

The demon withdrew his hand and rubbed his jaw instead, “I’m thinking of changing it. Do you think it suits me?”

“No, not really,” the angel said honestly, “I think it needs more legs.”

Crawly gave a small snort, “It is a rather a bad name for a snake, isn’t it.”

“Did you choose it?” He guessed Crawly must have lost his angelic name the day he fell from grace.

“No, they did, I suppose it was just the first thing that came to mind when I crawled out of the sulphur pit.”

“Not very imaginative of them I must admit.” Aziraphale agreed.

The angel looked over at the demon who had pulled his legs up and was now lying horizontally on the parapet, his long red hair hanging down rippling in the breeze, his bony hands resting on his ribs. Aziraphale found himself wiggling along the wall a fraction closer to the demon, feeling he would probably still have the upper hand in this position if things ended in up a fight. He could also just tip him off the wall with his foot should Gabriel or Michael put in a sudden appearance.

“Do you think that moment was of any significance?” the angel asked, gesturing down to the garden, “I’m really not one for the spotlight.” He sighed and his fingers worked anxiously at the material at bottom of his robe loosening more threads that blew away over the wall. “I’d hate to be remembered as the angel responsible for the ruination of mankind.”

Crawly considered this for a moment a tiny prickle of something uncomfortable balled down his spine as he found no words of comfort for the angel. “I can’t help think it might have been a bit of a point of no return, I mean not letting them back in and all that makes you think She’s pretty serious about the whole banishment thing.” Crawly knew from painful experience that She didn’t give out second chances however hard you pleaded for mercy when crunch time came. “Anyway you couldn’t have guarded that tree forever, things that say ‘don’t touch’ have a very short shelf life. They’d have found a way to get to it all by themselves at some point.”

The angel stared dejectedly out across the desert watching the tiny figures of the two humans (and one flaming sword) bravely striding out across the dunes to forge a new beginning. “Maybe, but I can’t help but think I’ve made a mess of things as usual.” He sighed and the demon felt guilty enough to try and look a bit on the bright side for him, a dejected angel was a pitiful sight.

“Erm . . I’m sure it was all supposed to happen. You, me, them, all part of Her ineffable plan.”

“Did you have some sort of plan to make the whole temptation thing happen?” Aziraphale asked in the vain hope that Eve’s final temptation was all part of a meticulously organised fiendish masterplan and not because the snake popped up one day to find the sentry on duty had been distracted by a bunch of grapes.

“No, not really, like I said I came up here and just sort of winged it.”

The angel suddenly perked up. “Oh that’s quite funny.” His face broke into a beaming smile.

“What is?” the demon managed to turn his head around to look over at him in away that defied bodily mechanics.

“You said you ‘winged’ it and well, it’s funny as _you’ve_ got wings.” He chuckled his hands miming wings dreadfully.

“Why is that funny?” asked the demon with a frown. 

“I don’t know, but I think it will be, I’ll make up a name for it one day.” He returned to his plucking of threads, a little less frantically than before, pleasantly turning new words over in his mind.

Crawly returned to his basking, he could feel the angel rhythmically banging his bare heels on the wall and hear him humming and mumbling to himself under his breath. It was a soothing sound and Crawly began to gradually drift off feeling relatively safe to have a snooze as smiting him would a) require a large sharp flaming object that b) the angel no longer had in his possession. As Crawly’s breathing deepened he did dreamily consider that c) he’d be happy to risk a potential smiting if it allowed him to spend a few more minutes in the angel’s presence, which he was finding very pleasant if not a little ridiculous.

Aziraphale watched as a beautiful iridescent beetle scuttled over the wall in a bid for freedom before wrong footing itself and falling onto its back, its tiny little legs flailing in the air. The angel gently lowered his finger and allowed the tiny barbs to grasp it, letting it run through his hands for a moment. He lifted his hand up and the beetle unfolded its tiny wings and buzzed off back towards the garden a little shimmering miracle of life.

His adversary let out a deep contented snore, Aziraphale poked him, Eve would have understood.

“Can I tell you something, Crawly.” When there was no answer he lifted bare toed foot and prodded him on the shoulder rousing him from his slumber. “It wasn’t really all my fault.”

“What wasn’t?” The demon mumbled half awake.

“The whole apple tree business.”

“Yes I know, it was _my_ fault.” The demon said with a grin, sounding sleepily and smug, “I’m hoping for a commendation for that one.”

“I wasn’t even supposed to be anywhere near the blasted tree.” The angel divulged and poked him again hard with his toes for good measure as the demon wasn’t taking this whole confession thing seriously enough.

Crawly grumbled “All right, all right, I’m listening,” and hauled himself upright, he unfolded a pair of long bony arms above his head and stretched. “And should I ask . . . “, he said rubbing the sand from his eyes, “what you should have been doing?” He yawned dramatically.

Aziraphale gapped at him, surely it was not physically possible to open your mouth that wide. The demon grinned at his reaction and indicated for him to continue.

“Well, I had been sent down here on earth detail, the usual, naming things, studying the humans, logging new species to put in the heavenly records. I was created as a _Principality_ , you see, not a _Cherub_.” This was obviously of great importance to the following admission as Aziraphale emphasised each rank with a pointed hand gesture.

“And . . . that’s relevant because . .“ Crawly looked confused.

“Because the _Cherubs_ are supposed to do all the official guarding.”

“And the Principalities?”

“Do all the dirty work.” Aziraphale said pointedly.

“So who was supposed to be guarding the tree then?” Crawly was interested now.

“Uriel.”

“Bad-ass Uriel?” Crawly’s eyes widened as he recollected several run-ins with the intimidating Cherub. “So why weren’t they there?”

“I think they got bored, or had something better to do.”

“Understandable, I remember heaven inspiring a lot of boring feelings.” he reminisced, “oh sorry, do go on.”

“So, I was investigating a new plant called a ‘grapevine’ when Uriel called me over, gave me their flaming sword and said would I mind keeping an eye on things for a moment as they had to pop out of the garden to do something.”

“Just as I whispered in Eve’s . . .” 

“Exactly.” Said the angel.

“Unfortunate timing.” Sympathised the demon. 

“Quite.”

Aziraphale couldn’t put the blame on Crawly for his part in it all, he was just doing his job and what were enemies for if not for thwarting each other’s plans. He had just found himself in the wrong place at the right time or was it the right place at the wrong time? He could never quite work that one out. 

“I wonder what will happen to Uriel,” Crawly mused,“ _She_ must know it was fundamentally their fault.” Crawly hoped to someone She didn’t decide to send them downstairs, hell was hard enough without a vengeful demonic Uriel baying for his blood.

”My life won’t be worth living if they get a demoted to an Archangel,” said Aziraphale gloomily, “Uriel looks like one to bear an eternal grudge.”

The two entities, caught up in their thoughts, watched as Adam and Eve slowly disappeared hand in hand into the haze of the desert. Aziraphale wondered how that might feel, to simply walk away from everything, to have free will, to choose your own path. The thought right now was quite appealing. He wondered if Crawly felt the same.

“I liked the humans a lot, I’ll miss them in the garden,” said the angel at last, “they were quite fascinating.”

“No will power though, plenty opportunities for further temptation, I think I’m going to like it up here.”

“Oh, are you staying?” Aziraphale tried desperately to sidetrack his look of delight in to a look of surprise.

“Yeah, hopefully. I have to make downstairs believe I’m doing a _bad_ job though, if you get my meaning.”

Crawly had given up any thoughts of an evil existence forty five minutes ago, he didn’t think he could bear seeing the disappointment on that angelic face.

“Oh yes, that was quite clever, and I’ll be here trying to do a _good_ job.”

“Not if I can help it.”

Aziraphale laughed and playfully slapped him on the leg. His blue eyes shone, “Oh, do you think, maybe in . . . I don’t know, say in 6000 years time we’ll remember this moment, the day we met, when I was supposed to be on apple tree duty?” He kicked out his legs and grinned at the demon.

“Nah, I‘m sure we’ll be bored of each other by then,” Crawly lied, as if he could ever imagine being bored in this angel’s company. “Unless you fancy indulging in some human pleasures to pass the time?” He winked a snakey eye.

“Don’t you go trying to tempt me with your evil wiles you wicked serpent!” The angel looked at him, his eyes twinkled as if that was exactly what he would like him to do.

Crawly laughed, “Then I’ll make it my life’s work, to tempt you into everything I can think of and some I haven’t thought of yet.” He nudged the angel making him giggle.

“Then you’ll have a very long time to wait.” He pouted primly.

“I think I can do that,” Crawly grinned. “You’ll give in eventually.”

A sound of trumpets heralded from way up in the Heavens, Aziraphale’s heart sank, They were on their way.

“Look I don’t mean to be rude or anything but I think I may have some company soon and I wouldn’t want you here when they arrive. Might look bad for us both.”

The two entities stood up and dusted themselves down. Aziraphale resumed his post on the gate and Crawly lingered for a moment longer than he should beside him.

“Understood,” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, “I’ve got some stuff to do too anyway, so . . erm, I’ll see you around Angel?” He walked towards the garden side of the wall and began to slowly morph back into his snake form.

“I’m looking forward to thwarting you soon! Goodbye Crawly.” He gave a small wave as the demon called back . . .

“Yessss, definitely going to change the name.”

**Author's Note:**

> In some superficial research I made for this fic Uriel was referred to as a Cherub as well as an Archangel so went with that idea that perhaps Uriel got demoted rather than Aziraphale (as it’s often portrayed in fics). Might go to explain a few of Uriel’s suppressed feelings!


End file.
